REAL PORTABILITY FOR TAX VALUE NEEDED

Once again, the state Legislature has become the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

There is no doubt that there is widespread support for making our tax savings from the Save Our Homes Amendment portable. By doing so, local governments would still be guaranteed at least a 3 percent annual increase in revenue, and in all likelihood, much more because real estate taxes would continue to be based upon full assessed value in those instances where a home has not been homesteaded.

Of course, that is a far cry from what they have been reaping over the past several years. So what do we get out of our friendly legislators? A proposal to double the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $50,000, which is effectively a drop in the bucket when one realizes that the real estate taxes on a typical South Florida home today average nearly $9,000 at full assessed value and that doubling the homestead exemption would save a typical homeowner approximately $500 per year.

However, to throw a bone to the masses, they also are proposing that the whopping amount of $100,000 of our tax assessment savings be made portable. In Broward County, where the median home value is $400,000, it does not take many mathematical skills to realize that both aspects are so insignificant as to be practically meaningless.

What the proposal would do, however, is to ensure that local governments would continue to generate double digit tax windfalls from Florida homeowners. Instead of coming up with schemes such as this latest one that do nothing to stop us from being trapped in our homes due to rising taxes, our legislators are simply doing what they do best: dreaming up ways to generate more money under the guise of giving us a break. It is time to call them on this and demand real portability of the Save Our Homes Amendment.